Guild Wars 2

Elegie.3620:

I cannot help but thinking that these DnT guys, while having demonstrated some good dungeon skills here and there, somehow miss very basic ones, pertaining to the respect of other fellow players. Going 3v1 against some lad trying his best to share insight with the community … ? Really?

I’ll have you know that I ran this build in a guild run and I only had 2 members rage quit the run. You are calling us out for doing nothing but give this guy props on his sick build.

This build is. AWESOME. Just ran a TRCoA with it and all I have to say is many bloods were chopped! Keep up the sick work

It was fun to watch and be a part of, simple as that really. It had the best of both worlds. Fun PvE content with PvP-esque brackets, rounds, and rulesets. There was plenty of high-risk high-reward plays that were made and the shoutcasters made it even more enjoyable to watch. They did a good job of explaining why certain techniques are better than others for the viewers. The guilds were basically presented as teams and people were rooting for their favorite team. There were highs and lows all around, but I can promise everyone that the next tournament will be even more enjoyable for everyone

Legendaries actually do make the game more fun.

Thanks everyone for participating. The entire thing was an awesome community experience, none of this would have been possible without all of you. Congratulations to SC for claiming the PvE throne!

Wethospu.6437:

For next tourney I suggest allowing teams to restart the dungeon at any time (if it bugs or wipe or just because they can). This would keep it more interesting for watchers when it’s not instant gg.

nah

EcoRI.9273:

Ok question number 3: In the restricted ruleset it states that all members must be visible in the video, or the record is void, I think this is important for teams that can’t have multiple streams. If any team decides to do split strategies, it will be unfair to the team with only 1 streamer and teams that do decide to split with 1 streamer can cheat with harpy feather consumables. How is this gonna get resolved?

I’d say we make everyone turn off simple party UI so we can watch their stealth buffs. Obviously consumables are banned, but there is only so much we can do to enforce that. Ideally we would want every single person to be able to stream, but that won’t happen. The rule sort of falls onto honor. We will have people watching very closely to catch any and all cheaters in the act, if they want to ruin their reputation as well as their guilds reputation then that is their choice.

basemoan.4702:

Just to clarify, we are able to rally or revive the downed right? As long as they aren’t full dead we’re good to go?

Also, can we make roster changes up to the day? Or is the 20th deadline the final roster editing point.

Yes, you can revive and rally any downed player. However you can not revive any fully dead player, nor can they waypoint. Nike was considering allowing people to hard-res the 1 person streaming if they died, but I am not sure where he stands with that idea currently. He can give you a definitive answer shortly.

Cut off for registration is Friday, June 20 at 12:00pm PDT
If you submit a roster now you can edit it as much as you want from now until that time, at which point it’s locked in.

Looks like CoE golem has been fixed

The event will be livestreamed here on Saturday, June 28th at 11am EST – http://www.twitch.tv/nike_dnt

Update: Due to a copious amount of registrations we have raised the number of participating teams in the tournament to 16. Bracket selection has been completed. Best of luck to all the teams! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11OEZo2ixbdBUzr1UmmabFd3NcAgXVkxgr4aST2ubT3c/edit#gid=1866558721

Tournament: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13284824-announcing-death-taxes-invitational-competitive-pve-tournament

Registration: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13284840-official-dnt-invitational-tournament-registration-thread

Death and Taxes [DnT] is proud to announce The Death and Taxes Invitational, the first competitive PvE tournament. Eight teams of five will compete for the fastest, smoothest dungeon runs in a competitive environment on Saturday, June 28, 2014 at 11am EST.

Prize pool is closed no more donations please.
Current Prize Pool:
3000g
2k gems to each player on the 1st place team
800 gems to each player on the 2nd place team
6 Gem store armor sets
60 Transmutation charges
Donaters:
16800 gems – Arenanet
Shin – 1000
Nike – 500
Luther – 300
Scrabbler – 250
Rezard – 200
Maarten – 200
Dom – 300
Dekeyz – 100
Lucy Storm Crow – 50
Don Quack – 50
Ten Mins – 30
Mad – 20
Lilith – 5x gem store armors
Iris – 50x Transmute charges

All rewards per player
First Place: 150g + 2000 gems
Second Place: 100g + 800 gems
Third Place: 75g + gem store armor of choice
Fourth Place: 50g + 10 transmutation charges
Fifth through Eight: 30g

The Format
The teams will be paired up before each round for a best of three path contest, and one randomly selected team will have the right to pick which path is run first. Their opponents will pick which path is run second. If a third path is required, Death and Taxes [DnT] will pick a dungeon path. The two teams will begin their dungeon runs simultaneously at an appointed server time, which the runs broadcast live on Twitch.tv. At least one member of each team must be able to live stream the run in order to participate.

The dungeon runs themselves will be regulated and timed according to the http://gwscr.com restricted rule set.

In addition to the Guild Wars Speed Clear Rules, a defeated player may not resurrect at a waypoint, and may not be resurrected by his teammates. Should a player be defeated, the remaining 4 must complete the dungeon. Should the last member of the team be defeated, or point in the dungeon be reached that cannot be completed with the remaining members of a team (i.e. only two members alive for Shaggoth in Arah Path 1 or the Brazier puzzle in Citadel of Flame Path 1) that will be considered a “Wipe.”
As long as the team that is still alive is able to finish the path without wiping, the finishing team will be given the win regardless of time. Should both teams wipe, the game will be considered a draw and will move onto the next path. If both teams wipe in the third path of the match, the team furthest into the dungeon will be considered the winner.

The Teams
Teams will register with 5 members and one optional alternate. The registration will list the account name of each player and the profession that player will be playing. Players must run the same profession they register with throughout the entire course of the tournament. The alternate player can fill in for any player on the team and may play any desired profession.
This will promote a risk reward proposition between an “all around” team composition that can tackle all paths of every dungeon and one designed to sacrifice utility for additional offense. The alternate will allow creative teams to tweak their team compositions to their advantage.

Registration
The tournament will be by invitation only, however we are soliciting for interested guilds or teams. Guilds may fill multiple teams if they have sufficient members. Any interested guilds or teams may register in the registration thread on the Death and Taxes forum. http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/13284840-official-dnt-invitational-tournament-registration-thread
The 8 invited teams will be announced on June 21, 2014.
Members of Death and Taxes will be excluded from participation in this tournament.

Questions or Help
Should you have any questions regarding any aspect of the tournament, please post them in the official tournament thread on the Death and Taxes forum.
If you would like to donate prize support (gems, gold, precursors, legendaries) please contact the host of this event, his IGN is ‘Nike’. (Nike Porphyrogenita.8137)
Registration cut off is Friday, June 20, 2014 at 12:00PM PDT.

Every team that participates will get a prize! Regardless of placement Absolutely nothing to lose

Evan Lesh.3295:

Things to consider:

• Viewing (seeing some else’s vs. seeing your own)

I would love to be able to see other peoples traits, dyes, armor, weapons, utility, etc. I’d like to just be able to right-click their name and see exactly what kind of setup they have. It would also be cool to be able to go to the GW2 website and search a players name and check that way also. If I could take it a step further and say I wish I was able to spectate people in PvE much like you can in PvP. For example, have only 5 people be able to participate in the dungeon, but have no limit on the number of people who can spectate that dungeon.

My asura is cuter

Not left. Not right.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

This thead really makes me wonder by engineer gets sold short so hard, they can might blast without interference from light fields, stack loads of vuln, and now deal extremely competitive DPS (around thief tier). Much better than anything a Phalanx warrior can put out, pug or not.

I guess it’s just cause no one wants to press all those buttons, I almost never see engies in any PvE format, period, and the ones I see are running something stupid.

I’d love to press all those buttons, do you have an Engi guide up anywhere?

Spoj The Second.7680:

Good for you. Noone should blindly follow others advice.

You took the phrase “That’s your opinion” to the next level!

Anytime I don’t see people click their endurance bar I think “lol. Casuals”

Colesy doesn’t speak for the guild. While individuals may look at FGSing everything negatively since it lowers the skill cap of the game the official position of the guild is “do whatever you have to do within the rules to get the best time, no carebear mentality.”

DnT isn’t concerned with how many records we have or the leaderboard. DnT is well aware of our skill level (and not threatened by others’ pretentions) and we are well aware that we could break whatever record on the leaderboard we apply ourselves to breaking if that was our goal. The reason we do not is a. we only care to do new records when there is a real innovation over the previous records (new builds, new strats etc) that allow for a major improvement rather than incremental and b. when done properly a record run takes significant amount of time and energy and it simply isn’t what most people want to do with their free time unless we can do something innovative and awesome.

tldr; we don’t want to beat current records by seconds, we want to beat them by minutes.

Why would you want to join a Heavy only LFG anyway. Sounds like a slow run to me.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

I get it the audience is primarily smash and grab. That’s why when I initially suggested them, failure would quickly move you into another fractal at that tier. Puzzles and other far off the beaten path challenges could be introduced in a way that if you suck at jumping/hate puzzles/just wanna kill they wouldn’t bar your progress more than a couple minutes tops.

The other option remains to incorporate them as short cuts within traditional challenge structures. Imagine an update to the Snowblind fractal when upon approaching the Ice Elemental there is an alternative to harvest X trees, and a crafting station when a player with Huntsman or Artificer of at least 300 can process them and you throw the results at the elemental starting a bonfire that kills it instantly. You can fight or you can chop some lumber if there’s a suitable crafter present.

We basically already have jumping puzzles to skip parts of the Underground Facility fractal, with all the ways people work around the first two gates . Instead of putting up invisible walls in every corner, you could actually formalize it as an acceptable alternative…

Another good paradigm for us to think about when we work on Fractals. Thanks.

Chris

Apparently you did not read his post at all. Because if you did you would realize he is talking about cutting down trees in what is supposed to ‘challenging’ content. Also, the last thing we need is more GW2 endgame that consists of us staring at the crafting menu.

Incorrect Dommmmmmmmmm.

I did in fact read it and personally i like it, specifically:

‘We basically already have jumping puzzles to skip parts of the Underground Facility fractal, with all the ways people work around the first two gates . Instead of putting up invisible walls in every corner, you could actually formalize it as an acceptable alternative…’

Please try to respect the opinion of others.

Chris

Hey Chris,

Since you are still considering his idea of making acceptable alternative routes to bypass content, can you consider making an alternative route to skip the dredge car. I firmly believe a good direction to start with would be to completely remove it from the game.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Nike.2631:

I get it the audience is primarily smash and grab. That’s why when I initially suggested them, failure would quickly move you into another fractal at that tier. Puzzles and other far off the beaten path challenges could be introduced in a way that if you suck at jumping/hate puzzles/just wanna kill they wouldn’t bar your progress more than a couple minutes tops.

The other option remains to incorporate them as short cuts within traditional challenge structures. Imagine an update to the Snowblind fractal when upon approaching the Ice Elemental there is an alternative to harvest X trees, and a crafting station when a player with Huntsman or Artificer of at least 300 can process them and you throw the results at the elemental starting a bonfire that kills it instantly. You can fight or you can chop some lumber if there’s a suitable crafter present.

We basically already have jumping puzzles to skip parts of the Underground Facility fractal, with all the ways people work around the first two gates . Instead of putting up invisible walls in every corner, you could actually formalize it as an acceptable alternative…

Another good paradigm for us to think about when we work on Fractals. Thanks.

Chris

Apparently you did not read his post at all. Because if you did you would realize he is talking about cutting down trees in what is supposed to ‘challenging’ content. Also, the last thing we need is more GW2 endgame that consists of us staring at the crafting menu.

The skill point in Kessex Hills where you have to kill Tocatl and Ol’ Stinky is bugged on Blackgate. He isn’t there and his turret is broken. And he won’t respawn.

Make it instanced and let players be able to choose their roster. That’s the only way you’ll truly be able to see how many people can beat it without getting pushed into the broken system that is overflows.

Engineer 7:32
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GX-lYH9zrg

I can see myself getting a faster time, but I probably won’t bother until someone else beats it.

J Eberle.9312:

EVEN MORE LEGIT PATCH NOTES

• The kick function has now been removed. Now when someone joins your party you must accommodate them and whichever build they decide to run. This is to create a better sense of community.

• To leave a party formed using the LFG tool one must wait approximately 1 hour. This is to ensure that dungeons are completed within an appropriate time as has always been intended. This also ensures that anyone who thinks they can just ‘up and leave’ a party because they think it’s full of ‘bads’ will stop and have a serious think about why they are playing this game.

• The use of ‘damage’ gear sets.

This has been a serious issue for us and we feel that ’damage gear sets fall into this category:

Any gear sets that have power or precision stats are considered damage sets

These gear sets were initially designed for people to try out as they leveled up and then to be discarded as they realized that survivability sets were clearly what was intended to be used in dungeons. This unfortunately is not the case and we have seen a rather large explosion of the populace take these gear sets into dungeons. We are very clear on this. This is an exploit. Damage sets, and in particular ‘Berserker’ will not be tolerated within the confines of dungeons.

• Added a code that detects the use of berserker gear in dungeons and forwards this information along with all combat logs to an appropriate administrator.

• Added Aetherblade mobs to every dungeon path. This is required so that living failure story can be incorporated into the one place that hardcores thought they could avoid it.

• Added a new combat function. Whenever players come within a 100 radius of one another they receive a debuff called ‘stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself! Why are you hitting yourself!?’

This debuff will cause immediate knock back in a random direction followed by a prompt death. This is discourage the exploit of stacking before we have to take more drastic measures such as banning accounts.

• Added a new NPC to every dungeon path. If this NPC dies, the dungeon will bug out be required to be restarted. This is a change required to create a more immersive atmosphere for the audience that dungeons were initially designed for: Roleplayers.

• Added chuck the Bartender to every dungeon path. One must type ‘/emote Chuck, please fix my armor!’ to repair their gear. This npc replaces the pre existing repair anvils.

• Removed Giganticus Lupicus from all paths of Arah. It has come to our attention that this boss fight does not come close to anything we outlined in out initial design manifesto. Furthermore, those who solo’d this boss are to recieve punishment for ‘exploiting’ as per our agreement with the lfg white knight kickers who have far more knowledge than us on who and who does not exploit along with how it is done.

• This fight has now been replaced with an underwater combat area in which players will face off against an ancient underwater dredge car that spits out aetherblade mobs. Once these are all defeated the car will morph faster than a bad mesmer can moa form lupicus’s locusts. It’s final form will be that of a random Hotw end boss.

-Enjoy
<3

omfg why didn’t you tell me you wrote this beautiful masterpiece! what a treat

Black Box.9312:

Is it really that impressive when

Yes.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Did you even bother checking the video posted by dooooom (or something)

I recorded an approximate 6 second kill with Thief last night. There is some room for improvement, so if anyone wants to challenge I’ll be looking forward to it.

Fix this already.

Idc about the other changes, I have no problem with them, and I usually never complain but Sword 2 seriously needs to be reverted.

PvE, PvP, WvW? A good all around choice I believe would be Scholar Runes since they are best for PvE, as well as good for PvP and WvW if you play a zerk build.

Dahkeus.8243:

Are there really this many thieves that are having this much trouble with stuns?

I mean, either you’re not dodging stuns (which is especially easy against classes like Warrior who have terribly obvious animation tells) or you’re not bringing at least 1 stun breaker, or you’re charging into a huge group of enemies that you shouldn’t be messing with.

I mean, I understand that sometimes you can get caught in a bad place with a zerg, but that’s what the stun breaker is for. I mean, even if that’s on cooldown, you can easily use Daggerstorm, which is your best elite for going up against a zerg anyways (stability + aoe).

You can either look for ways to improve your gameplay or ignore the fact that other people are doing just fine and pretend that you’re really just helpless because of your class choice…and if you choose the latter, then just re-roll and be done with it. But don’t expect much, because an attitude of faulting external factors will always hold you back.

This entire thing made me want to cut myself. Thanks for opening my eyes about Thief. I’m going to reroll now.

Remember when Thief was fun to play? Good times…

Thief is unplayable. Guess I’ll just switch to a super awesome Clerics Venom heal build. Brb while I outheal Guardians.

Just delete thief from the game.

And also revert the Infriltrators Return nerf.

Revert the cast time and make it unusable while stunned, launched, knocked down, etc.
I enjoy thief gameplay but at this point I believe it would make the most sense to delete my thief and main warrior. I’m still waiting for the massive buff to all thief builds, when is that being released by the way?

Pretty much the title…..? Not sure how to elaborate on that.

SheerBlood.5687:

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

The Signet Passive is already more than enough to not feel like it’s a waste of a utility slot. Combine the Signet activation with the trait that gives 5 might on activation and then it will be worth it.

I would agree with you if they didn’t add a 25% speed bonus to the 6th effect of Traveler runes.

That’s an entire rune set though. It’s a very useful utility which is why there are threads on threads about why Mesmer and Guardians should have their own 25% Signet speed boost. If it wasn’t an important utility nobody would be asking for it on their class

SheerBlood.5687:

Dommmmmmmmmm.6984:

Signet of Shadows isn’t rubbish, it’s perfect for stomping everybody but Thieves and Mesmers. “Sacrificing” it is worth it.

I dunno about that, I use Cloaked in Shadows trait when using offhand dagger, or just the black powder skill on offhand pistol when I stomp, If mesmer or thief try to teleport away I use my steal or infiltrators signet.

What if you have Shortbow equipped while stomping? Or you want to blind someone who is out of Pistol offhand range? What about being able to use it to LOS mobs around corners? The Signet Passive is already more than enough to not feel like it’s a waste of a utility slot. Combine the Signet activation with the trait that gives 5 might on activation and then it will be worth it.

Nah, that makes too much sense

18k+ views on this thread, 99% of every comment agrees, and yet still not an ounce okittennowledgement.

The only thing I can agree with is Signet of Agility being a stun break. Personally I believe everything else is fine as is. Although Patience should just be fused with the move faster while in stealth trait, with an extra slight boost to initiative regen while stealthed. And no, Signet of Shadows isn’t rubbish, it’s perfect for stomping everybody but Thieves and Mesmers. “Sacrificing” it is worth it.

Sounds just like what ESO is promising.

Coming from a Thief, make an Engi. :’(

My suggestion is fairly simple in theory. I’m thinking about what if they added a “Quick-Menu” that had all Combo Fields in a list with highest priority being the field on the top. Such as for PvE you’ll more than likely want Fire Fields as top priority over something like a Light Field, and WvW will more than likely be Water Fields over a Poison Field, just for example.

Another option would be just to have checkboxes for Combo Fields, and you would be able to simply check the fields you want your combos to be used with.

Or even better yet, combine both options.

inb4 Thief Sword 2 nerf on last day of thread being open.

Nicely said. If this doesn’t open up the devs eyes I really don’t know what will.

Dekk.3459:

ENGINEER
I know engineer needs some love. Isn’t a 100% condition convert every 15s a bit OP? Wait for only 15 trait points?? Needs longer ICD IMO

THIEF
Please, seriously take another look at thief damage mitigation. Low hp pool, minimal condition removal and buffs. Now the plan is to take vigor and nerf sword positioning and cond removal? I for one am not playing at some LAN party, lag can be an issue. Reconsider these changes or revamp the whole thief mechanic in 2014 cuz the number of thief players is going to drop.

Some change possibilities. Add another buff to traits that give vigor, for example, vigorous recovery vigor X sec, stability X sec; Bountiful Theft vigor X sec, aegis or protection and steal two boons. Add a steal boon or transfer condition to kleptomaniac. Add transfer condition to some other ability, really any condition removal (low hp pool might be fun for a guardian).

Other thoughts:
Deadly Arts
Throw out DA X, move DA XII Residual Venom to X and move SA XII Venomous Aura to DA XII. That or make DA X damage increase for skill 3 of dual wields.
DA VII Improvisation – Transfer condition on steal
Critical Strikes
Opportunist (dec10) with ICD of 4s
Shadow Arts
SA XII Shadow Sieve – attack after stealth transfer two conditions to target icd 10s
Acrobatics
A III Vigorous Recovery – gain vigor 4s and stability 2s
*A IV Change to Swashbuckler – Sword #2 is instant cast, or 25% speed w/ melee
A V Master Trapper – traps are instant and recharge quicker
Swap A VII Fleet of Foot with improved A V Master Trapper
A XI Hard to Catch – Turn to mist/smoke 2s & gain swiftness on disable (sorry but shadowstep skills are buggy with current terrain models and a class that uses positioning to survive… random movement is not conducive)
Trickery
T Adept Kleptomaniac – reduce ini 3 to 2, steal one boon
T VII Bountiful Theft – Grants Protection and Vigor, steal 2 boons
Basilisk Venom: gives target herpes, next 3 attacks (anyones) cannot be dodged, blocked, or evaded (at this point its only used for Rune set actives… Elite not so much)
Increase dps of sword overall by 5%, atleast give thief sword autoattack…
Increase speed of shortbow #5

This is some good stuff. Especially Hard to catch and Improvisation.

Do not add a 1/4s cast time to Sword 2 for Thief, just no. Wow please…no, seriously.

Is reducing Signet Use to 1 initiative gain really needed either? Why can’t it just stay 2.

Try to keep Assassins Reward in Master Tier too please. Its not that great to invest so heavily into that line just for that GM trait. Hardly even worth 20 points…

Everything else is fine… I guess. Looks like zero new updates for traps though, sure wish I could use traps and actually maintain a viable build. And I still wish Steal was a stun break.